TSA uses AI agent to respond to 100,000 traveler conversations per month

The Transportation Security Administration recently deployed Ace, an artificial intelligence agent built using Salesforce technology, to help travelers receive timely responses to questions about airport security rules. 

Ace is available to passengers on tsa.gov and the myTSA app to answer questions based on the federal website and over 550 knowledge articles, Paul Tatum, executive vice president of global public sector solutions at Salesforce, told Nextgov/FCW. 

The agent can accurately answer basic questions, such as whether a passenger can bring liquids to Dulles International Airport, Nextgov/FCW found when using the system. More complicated inquiries are handed off to a live TSA agent, along with an AI-generated case summary, Tatum said.

Ace went live this year “during the summer travel surge” and has handled approximately 100,000 routine traveler conversations per month and resolved 96% of inquiries without human escalation, according to a Monday blog post from Salesforce.

The post says Ace has also lowered the cost of consumer interactions by over 90% “without sacrificing service quality.” Ace can handle routine work and backlogs so TSA staff can focus on high-priority cases; the agency needed 12 full-time employees to handle excess workloads, the company added.

“TSA’s new Ace AI agent gives travelers fast, accurate answers before they reach the checkpoint — from what they can pack to how they can prepare — while helping TSA officers stay focused on their essential security mission,” said Kendall Collins, CEO of Missionforce and Government Cloud at Salesforce, in the post.

Ace builds on two foundational applications that also seek to help TSA staff answer traveler questions quickly and accurately. 

One of those, the Customer Service Managers app, unifies passenger email, phone and social media inquiries into one place. The app helps TSA staff route next steps for inquiries to the right people and offers staff “real-time AI summaries from case histories so [representatives] aren’t piecing together context manually,” Tatum told Nextgov/FCW.

The second app, TSA Cares, provides travelers with medical conditions a way to request support and get information ahead of going to the airport. Travelers’ requests flow directly to TSA’s contact center and regional coordination teams, which determine how to best support travelers and directly communicate with them, Tatum said. The agency rolled out the TSA Cares app last summer.

With the technologies, Salesforce projects 70,000 internal data-sharing transactions will be automated annually, freeing up over 11,660 staff hours. TSA’s applications are expected to save $11 million over the next three years, according to Salesforce.

“If we can help the traveling public easily access accurate, timely information, we can help alleviate stress in the field on travel days and increase the TSA’s overall effectiveness,” Niki French, customer experience branch manager at TSA’s Office of Civil Rights and Liberties, Ombudsman and Traveler Engagement, said in the blog post.